Neil Young Embraces the Sounds of Earth for New Album

While many of us celebrated Earth Day last week, Neil Young has marked an environmental-conscious calendar event of his own this year. His next album is titled Earth, and it sees release June 17 through Reprise.

A press release explains that Earth comprises 11 concert recordings captured throughout Young's 2015 tour, with some performances being solo and some with an entire, electrified band.

The cuts covered on Earth run from classic songs like the title track to After the Gold Rush, to material from On the Beach ("Vampire Blues") and Ragged Glory ("Mother Earth", "Love & Only Love"), to material off of last year's controversial The Monsanto Years with backup band the Promise of the Real.

The live recordings were later touched up in the studio with musical overdubs and nature sounds. A press release explains, "A new take on some of Young's most beloved songs, Earth features the live recordings, along with added musical overdubs, as well as sounds of the earth, such as city sounds like car horns, sounds of insects, and animal sounds from bears, birds, crickets, bees, horses, cows — creating a very strange, yet beautiful atmosphere."

Speaking of the album, Young himself also had this to say: "Ninety-eight uninterrupted minutes long, Earth flows as a collection of 13 songs from throughout my life, songs I have written about living here on our planet together. Our animal kingdom is well represented in the audience as well, and the animals, insects, birds, and mammals actually take over the performances of the songs at times."

Ahead of the album release, Young will hold an album listening party at Los Angeles' Natural History Museum on May 6. The event will have him playing the record in its entirety in Pono high-definition audio and adding insight on the making of the record. You can find out more info about the event over here.

As previously reported, Young is also due to re-release his Human Highway and Rust Never Sleep films on DVD. While they had initially been given an April 22 due date, they are now set to be released on June 10. You can pre-order either flick over here.